Kicking
What it is
Direct physical violence with intent to hurt. There's no "mild" version of kicking a person.
How it gets justified
“I was beside myself — I didn't know what I was doing.”
Losing control doesn't erase responsibility. And in many cases, violence isn't loss of control — it is control. If they only lose it with you and nobody else, the nervous system in question knows exactly what it's doing.
“It only happened once.”
Once is enough. Your body now lives with the information that it can happen again. "It was only once" doesn't switch off the hypervigilance that follows.
Related patterns
If this is happening now, get help.
These behaviors put your life at risk. You don't have to face this alone.
See emergency resourcesSomething feels off but you can't name it?
An exercise to listen to what the body already knows.